Locus Focus

Locus Focus host Barbara Bernstein talks with local, regional and national experts, activists and policy makers about climate change, food policy, land use, salmon restoration, forest management and all the other things that matter in our environment.

There is a growing scientific consensus that we are entering a new geologic epoch shaped by human beings. Dubbed the "Anthropocene," scientists are still debating how long ago it started or if it is only now unfolding. Most people are aware that humanity’s influence on our planet’s natural resources continues to cause irreversible damage. On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with Christian Schwägerl, an environmental journalist in Berlin and author of The Anthropocene: The Human Era and How It Shapes Our Planet.

The Canadian Tar Sands is the largest and most polluting industrial project in the world. Impacts of tar sands development ripple out from the Northeast corner of Alberta, where the tar sands are extracted, to almost every region in North America. On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with journalist Ted Genoways about the consequences of tar sands development for people in its path - ranging from First Nations people living downstream from these operations to communities along the routes of proposed pipelines carrying diluted bitumen to coastal ports.

Bees pollinate more than 130 fruit, vegetable, and seed crops that we rely on to survive. They are crucial to the reproduction and diversity of flowering plants, and the economic contributions of these irreplaceable insects measure in the tens of billions of dollars each year. Yet bees are dying at an alarming rate, threatening food supplies and ecosystems around the world.

This month the Citizens' Utility Board of Oregon celebrates its 30th anniversary. CUB has come a long way from its grassroots founding through a ballot initiative in 1984. Then Oregon utilities fought against the measure with a well-funded campaign and slick TV ads arguing that a Citizens’ Utility Board would turn out to be just “a boondoggle”. Far from being a boondoggle, however, in over 30 years of hard work and collaborative effort, CUB has proven, many times over, the need for an independent consumer advocate voice to intervene in utility regulatory proceedings and legislative initiatives.

This year's midterm election offered few victories for progressives to savor. But despite the gloom there were successful progressive election results in several communities across the country. On this episode of Locus Focus we focus on one of these bright spots - Richmond, California. For a century Richmond has been a company town. Chevron's oil refinery, one of the largest in California, dominates Richmond's landscape, politics and economy and for 100 years Chevron has owned the town. Chevron tried to buy this election as it has so many in the past. But to their surprise, progressive underdogs triumphed in the city's races for mayor and city council, despite being dramatically outspent by Chevron-backed opponents.

Portland, Oregon has been described as the city where young people come to retire, a place that celebrates what is becoming known as the Leisure Ethic. But the Leisure Ethic is not really about retiring, but about finding a way to live more simply, quietly and slowly, in tune with nature and the cycles of life.

At 16.8 million acres, the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska is America’s largest national forest, and contains some of the most intact expanses of temperate rainforest remaining in the world today. In addition, the Tongass is a key contributor to long-term sequestration and storage of atmospheric carbon. But for decades the Tongass has also been a major source of old growth timber. On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with Dominick DellaSala, with the Geos Institute in Ashland, about the need to step up protections for the Tongass. DellaSala was among 200 scientists who recently sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsak expressing their full support for a transition from old-growth to second-growth logging on the Tongass National Forest.

The need to remember nature as it was in order to remake a wilder world.

This program was originally broadcast on October 28, 2013.

We now live in a new geologic era shaped more by human forces than those of nature. But the environmental crisis we face today, has been underway for hundreds of years. Ours is now a '10 percent world'—a planet with just one-tenth of its former abundance.

Host Michelle Schroeder Fletcher speaks with award-winning journalist Kathryn Miles, author of SUPERSTORM: Nine Days Inside Hurricane Sandy, a moment-by-moment account of this catastrophic storm that took the nation by surprise. They'll talk about the fallibility of our weather forecasting systems, the impact of the lack of funding for research and development at the National Hurricane Center on forecasting future storms, why we’re behind other countries when it comes to weather warnings, and more.

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For a century dams have blocked salmon runs throughout the Pacific Northwest. These dams have wiped out or greatly reduced many of the salmon runs in the Columbia River Watershed, which was once the greatest salmon river in the west. But in the past few years, some of these dams have been removed. On October 25th, the Condit Dam on the White Salmon River in Klickitat County, WA, will be the next large dam to fall. After years of controversy and many missed deadlines, the dam will be blown up to make way for salmon to return to the upper reaches of the White Salmon River.

On this episode of Locus Focus we are joined by self-proclaimed river rat Steven Hawley to talk about what the restoration of the White Salmon River means for salmon and the rest of us.

Steven Hawley is the author of Recovering a Lost River: Rewilding Salmon, Revitalizing Communities, Removing Dams. He lives in Hood River, across the Columbia from the mouth of the White Salmon River.

For the past few weeks we've been discussing relatively short term implications of climate change on a variety of ecosystems. On this episode of Locus Focus we look at how the course we take in the near future—whether to curb our appetite for fossil fuels or continue the status quo of spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere—will impact life on this planet not just for the next century but for the next 100,000 years. Our guest, paleoclimatologist Curt Stager, has written a new book, Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth, in which he details the long-lived effects of the fossil fuel binge that has shaped the last two hundred years of human civilization.

Curt Stager is an ecologist, paleoclimatologist, and science journalist with a Ph.D. in biology and geology from Duke University (1985). He has published over three dozen peer-reviewed articles in major journals including Science and Quaternary Research, and has written extensively for general audiences in periodicals such as National Geographic and Adirondack Life.

A bug the size of a rice kernel is killing off more than 30 billion pine and spruce trees in North America. Historically bark beetles are not pests. A bark beetle can probably hear the distressed song of a drought stricken tree and for tens of millions of years they have been pruning or collapsing ailing, aging or drought stricken forests.

On this episode of Locus Focus, we talk with Andrew Nikiforuk, critically acclaimed author of Tar Sands, whose new book Empire of the Beetle, asserts that misguided science, out-of-control logging, bad public policy, a hundred years of fire suppression, and climate change have released the world’s oldest forest manager from all natural constraints. We'll talk about the massive destruction the bark beetle is causing and what it may mean for the future.

Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning Canadian journalist who has written about education, economics, and the environment for the last two decades. His books include Pandemonium; Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig’s War Against Oil; The Fourth Horseman: A Short History of Plagues, Scourges and Emerging Viruses; and Tar Sands, which won the Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award.

The fires this summer on the northface of Mt. Hood struck a dark chord for many of us who know and love the trails, basins and ridges of this rugged and least-accessible face of the mountain. Yet while we may feel great sadness imagining our favorite places scorched and blackened by the fires, it's important to remember the vital role that fire plays in regenerating the woods. After the fire the forest comes back, but it takes time. On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with forest ecologist Dominick DellaSalla about the vital role that fire plays in the cycle of life and death in a forest. We'll also discuss how we've interrupted those cycles through livestock grazing, high grade logging, post-fire logging and fire suppression, that changes the fire regimes in many places so that fires burn hotter when they do eventually burn. We'll look at how climate change is also exacerbating the intensity and frequency of fires.

Dominick DellaSalla is President and Chief Scientist at the Geo Institute in Ashland, Oregon.He is an internationally renowned author of over 150 technical papers, co-author of four books on biodiversity and sustainable forest management, subject editor for the Natural Areas Journal, guest editor for Conservation Biology, author of Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World – Ecology and Conservation, and serves as the President of the North American Section of the Society for Conservation Biology.

Coral reefs are on track to become the first ecosystem actually eliminated from the planet, a potential eradication being caused by us. Human activities are creating enormous changes on this planet which sustains us, and the alarming plight of coral reefs is just one of these. On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with ecologist Peter Sale, whose new book Our Dying Planet uses the motif of endangered coral reefs to explore the many ways we are changing our planet and to explain why it matters. But despite the gloomy title, Sale's book emphasizes that a gloom-and-doom scenario is not inevitable. We'll explore alternative paths that Sale believes show the ways in which science can help us realize a better future.

Peter F. Sale is Assistant Director of the Institute for Water, Environment, and Health at United Nations University and University Professor Emeritus at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada. His previous books include The Ecology of Fishes on Coral Reefs, Coral Reef Fishes, and Marine Metapopulations.

The United Nations is predicting that world population will reach 7 billion on October 31, 2011. Despite evidence that adding 225,000 more people every day to our population is stressing out the world—evinced by soaring food and gas prices and water shortages—the environmental movement has yet to call with a unified voice for the stabilization of world population growth. On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with William Ryerson, founder and President of Population Media Center and a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, about why we need to the stabilize population growth to a level that can be sustained by the world's natural resources and how that can be accomplished through education, family planning and revitalizing democracy throughout the world.

About Bill Ryerson:

William Ryerson, founder and President of Population Media Center (PMC), Chairman of Population Institute (Washington DC), fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and recipient of the 2006 Nafis Sadik Prize for Courage, is one of the world’s foremost experts on human population, having been in the field for 40 years. Before founding PMC, Ryerson was Development Director of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania, Associate Director of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and Executive Vice President of Population Communications International. Bill Ryerson authored a book chapter on population for the Post Carbon Reader, published in October 2010.

About Population Media Center:

Population Media Center (PMC) is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization with a well-tested methodology for creating behavior change communication programs that address social and health issues in a way that honors the system of values of the community. PMC’s work is concentrated on entertainment broadcasting, particularly long-running serial dramas in which characters evolve into role models for adoption of family planning, delayed marriage and childbearing, elevation of women’s status, avoidance of HIV/AIDS, and related social and health goals. The serial dramas are designed using a methodology created by Miguel Sabido, a producer of Mexican television. By engaging audiences in riveting, dramatic stories, PMC is able to not only deliver important social and health messages to huge audiences, but is able to motivate them to change their attitudes and behavior on the issues. PMC has reached more than 100 million people with its serial dramas, and their strategy has led to significant, measurable changes with regard to elevation of women’s status, reduced birth rates, and overall improved health among the audiences.

Conventional economic theory flies in the face of ecological reality. How can a global economy premised on perpetual growth survive in a closed system, which is our planet earth? On this episode of Locus Focus, we talk with Richard Heinberg, author of a new book, The End of Growth, which proposes a startling diagnosis: the expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits which include resource depletion, environmental impacts of unfettered industrial growth and crushing levels of debt. We discuss what policymakers, communities, and families can do to build a new economy that operates within Earth’s budget of energy and resources and how we can thrive during the transition if we set goals that promote human and environmental well-being, rather than continuing to pursue the now-unattainable prize of ever-expanding GDP.

Author of ten books, including The Party's Over, Peak Everything, and senior Fellow-in-Residence at Post Carbon Institute, Richard Heinberg is best known as a leading educator on Peak Oil — the point at which we reach maximum global oil production — and the resulting, devastating impact it will have on our economic, food, and transportation systems. But his expertise is far-ranging, covering critical issues including the current economic crisis, food and agriculture, community resilience, and global climate change.

Host Marianne Barisonek speaks with Steven Thompson, an American living in Japan, who is working on issues related to the radiation coming from the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant. Thompson recently visited the area surrounding Fukushima. He will talk about current conditions there and in the rest of Japan.

Guest host Stephanie Potter interviews Barbara Ford and Marilee Dea who are going as part of a contingent of "Gray Haired Ladies" to Washington DC to protest the Keystone XL Pipeline, a proposed 1,700 mile pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Canada to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. Proponents of the pipeline cite increased tax revenues, jobs and "energy security." In passing from Alberta to Texas, it would carry one of the world's dirtiest fuels through six states and the "largest aquifer in the world." What are the risks to ecosystems, water sources and public health? And what about the climate crisis? Climatologist James Hansen has stated: “An overwhelming objection is that exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts.” The women hope to join thousands of people from across the continent, including James Hansen, environmentalist Bill McKibben, actor Danny Glover, in a wave of sustained sit-ins. The protest runs from August 20 to Sept 3, and the Gray Haired Ladies will be participating on August 29. For some of them it will be their first-ever protest: "We are women over 50 from the Columbia Ecovillage, some have never demonstrated before. Peg, a hair stylist from Spokane Wa, Ann, a school secretary, Pam, a retired lawyer and nurse, Barbara, a counselor and facilitator, Marilee, a nurse practitoner and urban farmer." --Marilee (For more info you might want to check out this interview with Andrew Nikiforuk, author of "Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent.")

Portland is touted for its great parks system, but if you live on the far east side of the city, east of I-205 you wouldn't know it. But hopefully that is about to change. Over the years, Portland Parks & Recreation has acquired a number of great properties for future parks on the east side. They have already completed Master Plans for several sites and made initial improvements where funding allowed. And when a bond measure is passed in 2-3 years, building out new east side parks will be a priority. On this episode of Locus Focus we're joined by Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish, who is the Commissioner-in-Charge of Portland Parks, to talk about plans to vastly improve the parks system in this rapidly growing part of town, and why he doesn't want to wait implement them. He also talks with host Barbara Bernstein about other initatives to improve the health of Portlanders—and our environment: expanding community garden plots, removing junk food from Portland Parks recreational facilities and banning plastic bags in the city.

Nick Fish is Commissioner-in-charge of the Portland Housing Bureau and Portland Parks & Recreation. He also serves as Council liaison to Elders in Action and as a member of the Board of the Oregon Cultural Trust.

Comments

Barbara, I hope you might forward my comments to your guest. I was only able to listen to part of today's program but I am very interested. I want to raise my concerns about two prevailing frames that arise on your show and throughout serious discussion of climate change that I believe do great damage to the efforts to raise the awareness of the public and help them understand the urgency needed when addressing this issue.
First is the frame that global warming is happening slowly and will continue to do so. I do not believe the facts support such an assertion and not only does no one know that warming will not suddenly serge forward it seems to be doing exactly that. A report out last week raised the projected temperature for the planet by the end of the century to 9F from 4F degrees. That means that we are going to hit 4F by---2040? Until recently no one imagined the arctic ice cap could melt in anything like our lifetimes but in fact it will and it may do so as soon as 2013! The problem with the frames that give people the impression that GW is a slow process is that it provides fauls comfort, "Oh, technology will fix it before it happens," or "It is not my problem." Neither one is the case but too many people still think that way. So please start using a different frame from "by the end of the century," or “future generations." Instead say "within our life times," and stress the urgency. After all it is much more accurate to say catastrophic climate change is happening right now.

The second frame is that one cannot attribute any given weather event to global warming. That is only partly true. In fact one might say that you cannot not attribute any given weather event to climate change such is the post-industrial influence on the pre-industrial trajectory of the climate---we have departed the Holocene and are in the Antropocene some scientist tell us. It is like a basketball launched toward a basket that gets tipped by one of the players. Its trajectory is for ever changed. I think it is more accurate to say that the weather everywhere and everyday has been influence to some degree by GW. This is important because the frame that one cannot tell if an event is caused by climate change is asking them not to believe there own "eyes," experiences, or impressions which are often very astute. For instance in Oklahoma where I grew up we used to have thunderstorms in April and the 100F days did not come until late July. This year they had wild fires near Oklahoma City in April and the temperatures have been in the hundreds throughout much of this June---that has increasingly become the trend and is consistent with climate change projections. Now Oklahomans should by all rights believe that what they are experiencing is in fact global warming. It may be noted that Inhofe is a Senator from Oklahoma and one of the most radical global warming deniers and obstructionist in government.
I have been keeping up with this issue for a long time now and am alarmed at the rapidity that things are taking place. I truly believe we are probably in for crop failures, water shortages, and mass migrations here in North America, in this country, within our lifetimes and whereas I think there is a fine line to be drawn to not panic or send people into despair I think scientist tend to be much too measured in their statements. It is as though there is smoke billowing out of the projection room and the scientists don’t want be caught dead yelling fire in a crowded theater because there is no "proof" that there is in fact a fire.
Scientist have long dismissed the near term risk of a methane/co2 release from the arctic or the ocean meanwhile there is growing indications that that is exactly what is happening. As a NASA scientist you should know that a huge methane release was detected on Mars a few years ago and that is within a much more static system than ours----that should give us pause!
The public needs to be prepared in case there is a sudden spike in methane from the Arctic so I hope in the future Barbara you will direct your discussions of climate change toward the rapidity of changes already taking place and the potential danger of being too complacent and smug about what we know and what we think we do or do not know. Thank you.

I recently interviewed Phil Mote who has replaced climate change denier George Taylor as Oregon's State Climatologist. Like any careful scientist Mote does not feel comfortable attributing specific weather events to climate change. But he gave me a analogy that I like: It's like playing Russian Roulette and adding a second bullet to the chamber of the revolver. If you blow your head off it doesn't really matter whether it was the original bullet or added bullet that did you in.

While I support solar energy, I warn against pie-in-the-sky proposals that make it sound like we can find new sources to keep living our wasteful lives. The scale of the problem is lost when we pretend that putting solar panels on 100 roofs signifies real change.

There is some hope to be found in using solar power efficiently. This does NOT include powering electric resistance heaters with photovoltaics. It does mean passive solar heating, solar hot water, and solar clothes driers (AKA clotheslines).

When you have used conservation and innovation to convert the wasteful electric grid into a sustainable system, then we can begin the conversation about supplimenting the system for our transportation problems. Until then, the only real sustainable alternatives to petroleum are wind, human, and animal powered vehicles. Coal and nuclear, the primary sources of new electricity, are polluting uses of nonrenewable resources.

Walk, ride a bicycle, sail (without motor), and use horse and ox cart, if you are truly concerned about the serious threat of climate change. Park your car forever. We cannot afford cars any longer.

i think now is a good time to talk more about what socialism actually is - common ownership of the means of production - and what is is not - redistributing wealth. you are right to continue pointing out that what obama is talking about is a progressive tax structure, not socialism.

the progressive tax idea actually comes from adam smith himself, "It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion." [from book 5, ch.2 on taxes]

The intro music to Locus Focus is a song by Hugh Masakela called "Change." It's on his album "Time," which came out a few years ago. I plan on playing the song each week until Robert Mugabe relinquishes power in Zimbabwe.

Did you see the piece in the NY Times re schizophrenia and autism having possible roots in parental dna - that is mother mix:father's mix? That is female characteristics manifesting as schizophrenia from mother dna and autistic characteristics from father's?